From Keeper to Conservationist
An Interview with Dr. Dave Morgan

Dr. David Morgan - Researcher
Goualougo Triangle Ape Project (GTAP)
Nouabale Ndoki National Park (NNNP)
Republic of Congo

Dave Morgan began his animal related career as a child when he attended Busch Gardens/Tampa Zoo Camp. Eventually Dave went on to work at Busch Gardens with Great Apes as a keeper. In the mid-1990’s Dave was accepted as a an assistant gorilla researcher at the Mbeli Bai Gorilla Study in NNNP for a two year period - Busch Gardens was an early supporter of the Mbeli Bai study. After his research stint ended Dave returned to the states to work at Disney’s Animal Kingdom for a brief time – but it was not long before the pull of northern Congo became too strong. In 1999, the Columbus Zoo received a call from National Geographic photographer Michael “Nick” Nichols looking for a grant for Dave to begin a pilot study of naïve chimpanzees at the Goualougo Triangle located just outside the southern border of the Nouable Ndoki National Park. Columbus Zoo awarded the Goualougo Triangle Project its first grant and the study continues to this day. During those 10 years Dave has earned his PhD in Biological Anthropology from Cambridge University UK, and he met a fellow primatologist, Crickette Sanz who not only became his research partner but more recently his wife. The following interview was conducted by Beth Armstrong, Field Conservation Coordinator at Brevard Zoo.

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Beth: When did you know you wanted to work with animals, more specifically gorillas and chimpanzees?
Dave: I cannot remember a time in my life when I did not want to work with animals. I spent most of my childhood reading about wildlife, and watching television shows featuring animals. I went through phases with strong interest in cats and bears but always had a keen interest in primates, particularly chimpanzees and gorillas. Once I reached seventh grade, I new I would work with apes in a zoological setting or maybe even in the field depending on if I got a chance. I was also worried that there might not be any gorillas or chimpanzee left in the wild by the time I reached an age where could head out into the field and as a consequence, I always felt a sense of urgency.

Beth: Who or what was your greatest influence?
Dave: I have been very fortunate to have several people play really important roles in my professional life. Jane Goodall has had the greatest influence on me though. Before entering junior high, I can remember learning about Africa, chimpanzees, research, and the fragile situation the apes were in from Jane Goodall. I could not wait for her books or articles to come out. I was so impressed by her level of commitment to chimpanzees and to Gombe. She has truly given everything of herself in trying to better the lives of apes. We are so fortunate to have her working on behalf of conservation and education efforts and I’m also proud to say she continuous to be a source of inspiration for me to this day.

Beth: Did you have a particular person who mentored you?
Dave: For me, Mike Fay has played a large mentorship role. Mike is all about conservation and making a difference. What I find special about him is his ability to quickly study a particular situation or species and immediately get the big picture and put the actions and actors in the right place to make a difference. He has done this repeatedly across Africa and more recently, in the North America. While many researchers and conservationists have the similar goals, Mike is rather unique because he goes about it from the grass roots level. There are few people who have spent as much time as he has out in the field exploring, collecting data and making the necessary observations needed to convince people that the particular ecosystems or species he is focusing on needs help. I found the approach Mike used when conducting his dissertation research on gorillas was impressive. He took a very broad approach which combined behavioral data on gorillas with botanical surveys and habitat use preferences and synthesized his findings in the context of present day gorilla distribution. Such a project had yet been done at that point. Mike also included detailed studies of the apes feeding ecology and placed in the context of indigenous people’s use of wild plants. It was clear to me he worked very closely with the trackers out in the field and made good use of their knowledge and skills.

Beth: When did you know you would be working in the field and leaving the captive world behind?
Dave: I really enjoyed working with captive apes. It was something I had wanted to do my whole life and so, I was satisfied in many ways. I really looked at my job as a way of getting hands on experience with apes. I wanted to give myself three or more years of experience working with apes before taking a shot at field work. Once I became aware of the newly formed Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in 1995, I knew I would do what ever it would take to get there. When staff in Busch Gardens Conservation Department started a dialogue with the then Nouabale-Ndoki National Park director Mike Fay, regarding possible funding opportunities, things started looking promising and by 1997, I was on my way to Congo.

Beth: Was it a bit scary when you first travelled to northern Congo or did you just know that this was the right path for your life?
Dave: It was a bit scary leaving my job to head to Congo. I did not have any guarantee that it would work out for me but, I had to quite my job in order to go. So in that sense, there was a bit of an unknown aspect to it but I also new it was the opportunity of a life time and so I could not pass it up.

Beth: Tell us how you travel from the US to the Goualougo site? And how long does it take, start to finish?
Dave: To get to Goualougo we first fly to Brazzaville, the capital of Republic of Congo. Travel from the US to Brazzaville takes roughly sixteen hours of flying with stops in Atlanta or New York, and Paris, France. From France, it is a direct flight to Brazzaville. There are changes in Time Zones which throws your system off a bit, usually six to seven hours difference. From Brazzaville, we take a ninety minute flight in a Congolese regional aircraft to the center of the country to a town called Ouesso. From Ouesso, a large motorized dugout canoe takes you north for roughly five hours up a medium sized River called the Sangha. The park headquarters is located on the Sangha and next to a small village called Bomassa. From this point, you are just a full day’s travel from the Goualougo base camp. The park headquarters is located thirty three kilometers from the national park boundary which is traversed in a land-rover and we first enter the park by crossing the Ndoki and Mbeli rivers for an hour and thirty minutes. We disembark at the dock for Mbeli camp and we usually spend thirty minutes arranging our backpacks or talking with staff at Mbeli and preparing for the walk east to the Goualougo base camp. From this point, it takes five and a half hours walk through the park to our modest little camp.

Beth: People would be interested to know what a typical day for you at Goualougo Triangle is like, i.e. what time do you get up, how long of a day. Who works with you, what do you eat?
Dave: A typical day in Goualougo starts at 4:45 am though the cook is up by 4:25 am. We have a quick breakfast and are sure to leave camp promptly at 6 am when light is just breaking. Any earlier would put us at risk of running into elephants and gorillas in the dark which is no fun for either species. We usually have between two to three teams out searching different areas and each consisting of three or four individuals. Teams usually include one researcher/assistant and two trackers. These teams will focus on looking for chimpanzees in one of five chimpanzee communities. A relatively recent advancement is that we stay in contact with each other by texting on our Thuraya satellite phones which provide a cheap way of communicating our locations and observations to others. After finding chimpanzees, we first make sure we get an idea of who is present and if there is any health concerns. Monitoring individuals during contacts is a lot of work and it requires filling out standardized sheets. We have three main sheets, a general encounter, a health monitoring sheet, and a sheet for conducting scans. We also take at least a little video of each individual ape for our video records. Teams will try to maintain visual contact with the chimpanzees all day if possible.
During the day, we also collect data on other large animal sign or direct observations made. Each assistant carries a gps unit that records a constant track log so that we know exactly where each team has been and where we have sampled for apes. We usually arrive back at camp between 5:00 and 5:45 pm depend on how far we have walked from camp and if we have had an ape contact or not. After a quick bath in a stream, we all eat together around a camp fire and discuss the day’s events. After dinner research assistants usually do some computer work, downloading track log and filling contact sheets. We also will also send emails and prepare gear for the next day.
There is other work that needs to be fitted into the schedule such as checking our remote cameras stationed at termite mounds and fruit trees. This occurs every eight days and usually takes three days to conduct. Once a month we also have a phenology circuit (systematic monitoring of nearly 800 trees for food production in two chimpanzee communities) that needs to be conducted which allows us to assess food availability in the environment. In addition, we conduct systematic ape nest counts outside the national park every six months. The transect team includes two research assistants and six trackers along with a compass bearer. Transect surveys usually last about five to six weeks.
In terms of Goualougo cuisine, it is rather simple because we are not able to get fresh vegetables or meat. So we eat a lot of beans, sardines, canned meat or smoked fish that is mixed into a sauce. With the sauce we either have rice, “fufu” which is manioc prepared with hot water and dipped in the sauce or pasta. Leftovers from dinner are eaten for breakfast. During the day and on the path, we will take a short break and have either a snack of peanuts or bread.

Beth: What is your favorite aspect of field work?
Dave: My favorite aspect of field work is being with the chimpanzees and gorillas out in the woods. There is nothing like it. We have just begun to scratch the surface of what it means to be a chimpanzee in a Central African forest and even less so of sympatric gorillas. Though we have been working in the Goualougo for ten years, I can honestly say each day brings new adventures and it all seems still so new to me and still so much work to be done. In that sense I am very fortunate.

Beth: What are some of the difficult aspects of conducting field work?
Dave: The remote conditions make the work challenging because logistics need to be coordinated between several projects and multiple staff at the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park headquarters and Buffer Zone Project. Any time we have teams come in or out of the field site, which is once a month during worker rotations, it requires a lot of coordination with back-up plans. We are fortunate to have a team of research assistants who are good communicators. We are also lucky to have Wildlife Conservation Society managing the park and staff and the vehicles.

Beth: What is the best thing that has happened at your field site?
Dave: Many great things have happened at our field site. We have made several discoveries about chimpanzees and worked with outstanding Congolese. We find such accomplishments highly rewarding. The best thing to happen out at our field site was not having logging. When the project started, it looked like timber exploitation in the Goualougo Triangle was a distinct possibility. Without a doubt, timber exploitation in this area would have changed the lives of the apes in the study area and the course of our work. I could not imagine how difficult it would be to walk out to the Goualougo Triangle if it had been exploited for timber. The annexation of the Goualougo Triangle to the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park represents one of the rare instances in which conservationists have arrived in an area before industry and been able to secure it for the long-term.

Beth: I’m a huge believer in art having the ability to transform people’s perceptions. I’ve noticed that many gorilla and chimp keepers are extremely talented artists and you are no exception as your art is really wonderful. Has your ability to draw helped you in your fieldwork?
Dave: I feel very fortunate that I found drawing and painting as a hobby. My work at Mbeli Bai and Goualougo has benefited tremendously from being able to quickly sketch an individual ape while observing them. Being able to identify individual apes repeatedly is extremely important and not always easy to do when some of the animals are only seen rarely and for short durations. Having notebooks to keep track of individual identifications is essential. At Goualougo, we have identified over 400 individual chimpanzees in at least fourteen communities!

Beth: What advice would you give to someone working in the zoo field who wants to transition to doing field research?
Dave: When I was transitioning from the zoo field to doing field research, I found being persistent was really important. A transition to the field can take quite a bit of time. I can remember patiently waiting to hear back from people in the field but keeping them reminded I was indeed really keen. Showing that one can be a good communicator and is serious about reaching their goal can go a long way towards having an opportunity to do field work and not.

Beth: Who are your conservation heroes?
Dave: Mike Fay is a conservation hero of mine. His conservation impact in Central Africa has been huge and in so many ways. He has led expeditions across Central Africa to identify areas important as set asides and the results of his tireless work have changed the conservation landscape. I think Mike has also been extremely good at identifying important research and conservation projects and putting the right people in place. Some of the best run and long-term research projects in the region were started under Mike’s vision and direction. I think Mike has also been extremely good at raising awareness about the issues facing wildlife in Central Africa. The increased awareness and interest has translated into funding possibilities that might not have taken place had he not been involved. Though he is working in other parts of the world now, he still maintains contact and provides assistance and input when he can.
Another conservation hero is Fiona “Boo” Maisels, Researcher for the Wildlife Conservation Society. Boo has given so much of herself to conservation efforts in Central Africa. She has been involved in many scientific projects as well as assisted in designing monitoring programs of protected areas in countries like Gabon, Republic of Congo and Cameroon. Endangered species such as elephants and apes have no doubt benefited from her long-term commitment to ensuring their protection. She has also been responsible for training many Central Africans in research methodologies and survey designs. I think this is truly special because it means she has taken the time to educate future conservationist instead of furthering her own research interest. As a result, many of the park wardens and research assistants in the region learned about research and conservation from Boo. A good example is our Goualougo Triangle Ape Project Manager, Mr. Jean Robert Onononga. Jean Robert was originally identified and trained by Boo nearly twenty years ago.